Places of hospitality such as hotels, resorts, and parks provide guests with a number of services. In order to control access to certain services, these places may use locks and other types of access devices to secure the services. For example, a room that is reserved for a guest may be secured using an electronic lock, and only the guest that is authorized access to the room may have a key that opens the lock. Other examples of secured or controlled areas may include a gated parking structure or a VIP club.
Typically, guests with authorization to access a controlled area of a place of hospitality are required to obtain an access key, such as a magnetic card, for unlocking an access device. For different controlled areas such as a room and a fitness center, guests may also need to obtain more than one access key. With multiple keys, it may be difficult for guests to locate the right key for unlocking a particular access device. Guests may also lose track of keys and have to obtain new keys to access a controlled area.
Many access keys also need to be placed in close proximity or within access devices in order to unlock the access point. For example, a magnetic stripe card key may need to be swiped by a guest through a card reader on an access point in order to unlock the access point. For guests carrying loads, having to set down the load in order to find the right access key to unlock an access point may be inconvenient and time-consuming. Many guests may also carry an access key in a purse or briefcase and have to spend time locating the access key in their purse or briefcase in order to unlock an access point.
Guests may also encounter delays and congestion in obtaining their access keys. Guests typically pick up their access keys from a front desk of a hospitality establishment. Oftentimes, however, the lines before front desks are long due to the number of guests staying at these establishments. Guests that misplace keys may also have to return to the front desk multiple times in order to obtain new access keys. Access keys such as magnetic cards may also lose their data when placed near a mobile device such as a cell phone, which may necessitate another visit to the front desk.
Moreover, access points at places of hospitality are typically set to operate in a static sleep/wake power cycle. Because most access points are powered by batteries, the sleep/wake cycle of the access point is designed to maximize the period of time that a set of batteries would last. Specifically, the ACP may be set to operate in a sleep mode for static time increments and to wake periodically to check for control messages from an external source (e.g., an upstream control point or a lock server). In its sleep mode, the access point cuts power to any unneeded components, thereby conserving power. But the access point in the sleep mode may not respond to signal from an external source. As a result, with a static sleep/wake schedule, if an unlock message is sent to a specific access point when it is in sleep mode, then the access point may not respond to the unlock message and provide access to a controlled area until it cycles into its wake mode. This may cause guests to wait for a longer period of time (i.e., wait until the access point is in wake mode) in order to gain entry into the controlled area. While a solution to this problem may be to always operate the access points in a wake mode, such a solution reduces energy efficiency and may pose an inconvenience to guests and hospitality staff if the access points require constant battery changes.